Bad News: The GT-R Nismo's Astonishing Nurburgring Time Was A Massive Lie

Earlier in the week we brought you the news that the incredible Nissan GT-R NISMO had lapped the Nurburgring in 7 minutes and 8 seconds, just 11 seconds slower than the Porsche 918.

Well it turns out that it kind of didn't. The original press release did state that the car used featured 'track options', which included 'aerodynamics tuning, weight reduction, and suspension tuning'. It turns out that this also includes 'bigger spoilers for more downforce, different dampers and brake pads, bucket seats that contributed to a significant 50kg weight saving and a new ECU map.'

Now Nissan weren't necessarily hiding this fact, and these parts will be made available to customers, but PistonHeads spoke to NISMO engineers, who confessed that the car had also been specifically tuned for the Nurburgring. This is significant as, for example, the 'Ring car's dampers are actually softer than standard, to aid the car around the bumpy circuit.

This is another example of just how pointless Nurburgring lap times are as they are completely unregulated. Nissan made bold claims that it broke the lap record for 'a volume production car' - it won't ship engineers to fine-tune your car for the environment in which you'll be hooning, so it's not really the 'volume production car', is it?

That being said, the GT-R NISMO looks like a badass. Even without the fine-tuning, the 600bhp V6 sounds like an incredible package.